One month in

Hard to believe, but December is already here! This means a number of things:

1. Time at site: one month
2. Thanksgiving weekend was spent with Peace Corps friends at possibly the most beautiful lake in the world, lounging in hammocks and kayaking for hours
3. I missed all those great deals on Black Friday; but most importantly, I was even further away from all those crazy shoppers
4. I’ve made a conclusion on fleas: If you can’t beat them, let more join you
5. Despite what some of you may think, I will not be dreaming of a white Christmas, but still will be freezing my butt off (2300 m. altitude)

Out of 24 months of service, I’ve completed one month thus far, or 4% of my service. I’m still not quite settled in; I will be moving in to my permanent place in January, still with a family, just a bit of a different set up. I’ll actually be sharing a place with one of my work colleagues, Heidi, who is the same age as me, so it will also give me the opportunity to speak a lot of Spanish and get to know a Guatemalteca my age. Heidi is really cool, and the family she/I rent(s) from is super nice as well, so it seems like the perfect set up!

Work has been going well- I have been to four out of the 10 communities and met the women’s groups in those communities. I have also met a number of women who have come into town during market days when they come into my agency’s store to purchase supplies, but there are so many that I know it will take a few months for me to be able to remember half of their names! I feel a bit bad, but it’s really quite challenging, and until I can put names with faces and communities with products, it will be a little more time until everything comes together. All together, there are about 110 women in the women’s groups. Each community makes different products, and each community is at a different level of progress in both their commitment and quality of the work that they do.

The “quality” issues are not anything that can’t be fixed, it’s mostly just consistency and “gringo-fying” the products so that they would sell better in an international market. Because the women work on most of the products while they have extra time at home, they don’t see how the other women in their communities are making the products. My counterpart and I are working on methods, handbooks and charts for the women to be able to refer to for product specifications so that each product can have more consistency.

Two main things I have been working on with my counterpart is cleaning up the agency store and teaching her how to use a computer. A couple weeks ago when Isa, my counterpart, and I were walking to a community, I started talking to her about the importance of using a computer and how it would not only benefit her in her work and personal life, and it would also allow her to gain her independency and not have to always rely on other people to type up things for her. She told me she was a afraid that only people who are educated can use computers. She said that because she has a 5th grade education. I told her that was absolutely not true: she can read, she can write, and most importantly she is a leader in her community and 110 women, raised eight children, and what struck her most is when I told her if my mother could learn how to use a computer, then anyone could learn how to use a computer.

I think that pretty much sealed the deal with her, because the next day, on her own, she told me we were going to work on the computer together. At first I thought this was her way of saying that I would be doing some computer work, which I was getting ready to come up an excuse for if she didn’t want to join me in the work, but to my surprise, she sat down in front of the computer and waited for me to tell her what to do.

Isa had never used a computer before, let alone type, but by the end of two hours, she was getting the hang of the keyboard and had written all of her eight children’s full names and even wrote out a few sentences. I taught her how to open a word document and save as, save; I was extremely proud of her the whole time, and she was even laughing at herself when she made little mistakes that she was actually using a computer. After we finished up, she told me and the two other girls in the office that now that she is learning how to use a computer there is one more thing she wants to learn. There is a machine in one of the communities that she doesn’t know how to use- the only artisan machine she doesn’t know how to use because she is afraid. But now that she is learning how to use a computer, she will learn how to use this machine too.

That was probably the highlight of my entire stay here so far. Though I know she won’t be typing out entire documents anytime soon, just her motivation and attitude really struck me. I was truly dreading that a year later I would still be pushing her to sit in front of a computer. Of course, there is still a lot of work to do, but I am very happy for both my small success but what will be a huge success for her.

The other “accomplishment” is the organization of the store. The store was quite disorderly, if you know what I mean. Since I didn’t really know what to do the first couple of market days, I just started sorting out some of the display cases and shelves, and then found myself reorganizing and sorting everything. It really was quite a bit of work since Isa works the store, but by the end of the day the display case was organized, extra products were put away a few other things were organized. I was half jokingly scolded her when I found some really cool products that were nowhere in customer sight, telling her that they should be out so that customers can see what we have in stock. The second market day I was reorganizing, I found a bunch of bags in another display case and was reorganizing them. The president of our association was also there, and when she saw one of the bags that was hidden underneath all of the other products, she took it for herself right away- and I told Isa that is exactly why we need to have things neat and organized, so that customers can see things they didn’t know were in the store and will have a higher chance of selling those products, and she seems to be catching on, which makes my job a lot easier, but more so, it makes me really happy that she’s starting to “get” it… now my job is to help her keep the organization so that inventory won’t take three days each time we buy more supplies! Great progress though, which I’m thrilled about.

That’s all for now… I will for sure write another update soon and keep you posted. Since some of you may be wondering what I’ll be doing for Christmas: staying in town. It will be quiet and nothing like at home, but that’s one of the experiences I came for. I still don’t have plans to go to anyone’s house, so perhaps I’ll just spend a quiet evening by myself, which isn’t as bad (or even sad) as some of you may think!

I hope everyone is well and isn’t taking the shopping and chaos of this year too seriously (or seriously at all), and remember that emails, letters or a short phone call are always greatly appreciated!